This public façade doesn’t represent the inner self or true identity of the person or character. It’s a disguise or protective outer shell used to camouflage one’s self in order to conform, fit in, be popular and/or appear successful. Alternatively, it is a way to provoke others, snub convention, set one’s self apart from the crowd and/or flaunt how (supposedly) little social acceptance or success means to the character.

This carefully constructed exterior veneer is always the first image or impression the film or television audience has of the character. The audience forms a superficial opinion about the character. They accept the character’s attitudes and actions at face value. But there is always more to the character than what first meets the eye. It’s your job to turn those surface views and expectations up side down and inside out by exposing the character’s more complex inner truth over the course of the screenplay or teleplay.

Begin by asking yourself: What image is your character trying to project (or protect) by his or her choices. What does the character try to conceal through his or her choice of external trappings: clothing, accessories, hair, and makeup? What does the physical paraphernalia the character uses or owns (or avoids) conceal about him or her? How does the character’s actions and dialogue reinforce this false projected image?

Each character (and every person) has carefully constructed a façade out of hundreds of crucial details and specific choices. Who and what surrounds the character at the beginning of the script? What types of people, material objects and environment does the character choose or seek out when we first meet him or her? What image is your character trying to project or protect with every physical and material choice? How does the character’s actions and dialogue build the pretense?

The fun of watching a movie is watching the character’s carefully constructed outer veneer being stripped away. Audiences love to watch the unmasking process. How does your character finally reveal his or her true colors? How does the character begin to face his or her deepest fear and expose the naked, vulnerable inner self? Or does the character choose to continue to hide behind his or her protective shield? If the character refuses to let go of the mask he or she becomes the mask and falls to the Dark Side (and is doomed to be forever driven by his or her fears).

Build your character’s outer shell in the beginning of your script then let your audience watch this protective covering being stripped away— bit by crucial bit. Let us watch how your character gradually sheds his or her carefully constructed façade. Let us watch how the character transforms into his or her truest highest most authentic self or how he or she clings to the mask and falls to the Dark Side. What painful choices must be made? What revealing actions must be taken?

Characters (and writers) become successful by becoming more true to their real inner core of self. Hiding behind one’s mask is living a lie driven by fear. Telling the truth about one’s self is the hardest thing a character or a writer can do.

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